Rules Engine | CRIS has a powerful interface to define the rules for various promotions, member qualifications and tier changes. | | Three types of rules can be defined in CRIS | | | - | Promotional:
Promotional rules are triggered by member earning activities, useful for marketing promotion campaigns. The miles earned are recorded as bonus miles and a special "miles to dollar" rate can be associated. Special cases of "member get member" and corporate bonus rules can be set | - | Conditional:
Conditional rules are used to indicate member qualification into the programme. Multiple conditional rules can be set up in the system | - | Tier change
Tier change rules are used to upgrade, downgrade or retain members across tiers |
|  | Reward Rules Engine | | | - | Rewards driven by business could include some promotions such as cash plus miles or discount on awards. The Rules Engine can be set up to define the reward promotion based upon various selection criteria. |
| | The prerequisites for the application of these rules can be set based upon the following criteria, thus enhancing the power of the rules engine: | | | - | Member profile details such as tier, territory or country | - | History transactions (e.g. the completion of a number of similar transactions) | - | Activity details such as flight number or sector | - | Special Criteria, a tool that allows the writing of a query including any member attribute from the database. |
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Administration |
| The CRIS administration module facilitates easy one-time set up and maintenance of reference data such as customer types, activity types, enrolment methods, and tiers | | CRIS uses Oracle's scheduling feature to execute off-line jobs such as tier upgrades, card fulfilment and welcome letter mailing | | CRIS maintains letter templates used for communications by the call centre agents | | CRIS security can be maintained at group and user levels. Access to different modules can be restricted at both levels | | The CRIS rules engine is defined and controlled at the administration level | | The System Query Builder module gives an administrator further access to the various data elements stored in the database | | | |
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Enrolments | CRIS acts as a single repository for the various types of defined customers together with their profile information across different channels | | Customers can be enrolled in a number of ways: | | | - | Over the web | - | Online by a customer services agent while talking to the customer | - | Batch enrolments through uploading data files | - | Through the reservation system interface |
| | CRIS is flexible in defining the customer profile set up | | | |
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Tier Management | CRIS supports multiple user-defined tiers | | Tier change criteria are configured into the system. Changes occur automatically when the necessary criteria are met and the appropriate fulfilment procedure is triggered | | Tier change criteria can be configured for individual markets |
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Mileage Accrual |
| Miles can be earned as tier miles, miles or bonus miles. | | Tier miles are used to move members across tiers | | Miles are earned to claim various member rewards | | Bonus miles can be awarded on marketing campaigns driven by member profile, activity attributes and historic trends | | Miles can be automatically credited to the member's account: | | - | Via the PNR repository | - | Through text file uploads for partner activities |
| | The expiry period for miles can be configured into the system as per the requirement, e.g. with oldest miles being burned first | | Retrospective claims can also be handled in CRIS. For example: | | A passenger fails to show his FFP membership card at check-in.
On his return he calls the service centre to claim his miles. The call centre agent is able to verify the flown travel by checking the customer data on the PNR repository. Once verified the miles are immediately credited to the member's account. | | | |
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Mileage Redemption | Miles can be redeemed in real time for flights on the host carrier through the reservation system interface, thereby streamlining processes and removing the need for manual intervention | | Members can redeem multiple activities in one transaction. For example, a flight, hotel accommodation and car hire can be redeemed as a single reward | | Cancellations are also managed in CRIS with options to specify cancellation charges or percentage of miles returned to the member's account | | The system supports flexible zonal mapping to compute redemption miles required for rewards | | Administration charges are managed, such as rush delivery and cancellation fees |
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Family Programme | CRIS supports the management of a family programme. One member is nominated as the head and any number of family members can be supported | | Each named person is a full FFP member in their own right, earning miles with a percentage of those miles being posted to the head's account |
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Travel Coordinator | CRIS supports account management through a customer's nominated travel coordinator. This travel coordinator can operate the account on behalf of the customer. |
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Corporate Programme | CRIS comprehensively manages corporate accounts where normal "earn" and "burn" policies apply | | Special bonus schemes can be configured to individual client specifications | | Supports the creation and management of frequent flyer programmes for children |
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Partner Programme | FFP members are able to accrue and redeem miles against various organisations with whom the host airline has agreements | | Partner contracts are defined in the system and an exchange rate set for each partner | | A comprehensive partner data exchange module supports partner accrual and redemption activities | | Member activities are uploaded to CRIS and validated prior to posting the miles in the member's account | | Billing reports are automatically generated | | Double dipping check feature attempts to prevent miles accrual on multiple programmes for the same travel |
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Customer Affairs and Service Audit (CASA) | CASA, an optional module of CRIS, monitors and logs all incoming and outgoing customer communication. Should a customer complain or compliment, CASA manages the process. It categorises the complaint and then generates an acknowledgement using a customised or standard template letter. The CASA module also facilitates workflow management for investigation and service audit. | | Compensation profiles can be defined against the complaint categories. |
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PNR Database | CRIS provides a comprehensive database of PNR records, which can be used for: | | | - | Automated updating of FFP data | - | Automatic accrual | - | Verification of retro claims | - | Confirmation of actual travel |
| | Personal preferences of FFP members can be automatically included in the PNR e.g. meal requirements, preferred seating | | Reports can be generated on the travel patterns of each passenger |
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CRIS Messenger | CRIS can be parameterised to send valuable information to members. For example, a member may want to know if there is any change in their flight schedule, or the airline may wish to send promotional messages upon qualification to a higher tier. This can be achieved through automatically sending them an SMS message or e-mail, either on an ad-hoc basis or as a broadcast |
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| Interfacing |
| CRIS is based on the Oracle platform, an open architecture which can easily interface with external systems on diverse platforms using APIs. The multiple platforms include Microsoft and Java technologies and mainframe applications.
Examples of applications interfacing with CRIS include reservations systems, websites, computer-telephony integration (CTI) solutions and interactive voice response (IVR) systems. |
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Technical Architecture | CRIS has been developed using state-of-the-art, open and scalable technology: | | | - | Oracle database 9i | - | Developer 2000 (Oracle Forms, Oracle Reports) | - | Any Oracle-based reporting tool, such as Business Objects | - | Runs on UNIX/Windows NT/Windows 2000 | - | Oracle Web Server (Optional) | - | CITRIX (Optional) | - | MQ Series (Optional) |
| | CRIS uses stored procedures to support real time access by an Internet application. Some examples are enrolment, change of personal details, viewing of future bookings, registering for campaigns, mini-statements and detailed statements. CRIS also contains procedures that can be used by an airline reservation system to provide real time data exchange. These procedures support the upload of customer profiles to the reservations system and interactive entries for real time redemption. |
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Developments |
| CRIS will become fully web-enabled, through the development of its front end in .NET | | A data warehousing facility will allow users to extract any information in the database and analyse it in any way to best suit the needs of their business | | A bulletin board will allow the easy dissemination of information to users upon log in |
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